Trout-Dawson tonight on ESPN2 from Temecula, California

By Boxing News - 08/22/2014 - Comments

canelo6By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-2, 14 KOs) will be trying to get back on the winning track tonight against Daniel Dawson (40-3-1, 26 KOs) in a 12 round fight televised by ESPN2 on Friday Night Fights from the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California, USA.

This is perhaps the fight that Trout should have taken last December as a confidence booster instead of facing WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara, because that was clearly not the right fight for Trout to take following his somewhat controversial 12 round unanimous decision defeat to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in April of 2013.

Trout went from that disappointing fight straight into the Lara bout, and not surprisingly he looked poor and lost the fight by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision.

“I was never comfortable in the ring with Lara. The style clash was horrible,” Trout said via Dan Rafael of espn.com. “I do care about what the crowd wants in the fight and what the crowd thinks. They started booing and I fell into his game plan. He don’t care if they’re booing. I tried to make the fight, and I fell into his trap.”

Trout came straight at Lara instead of boxing him, and this led to Lara connecting with a high number of clean pot shots. It was the same thing that Lara did in his fight against Canelo, except the judges gave Lara the win against Trout and a loss against Canelo. There’s obviously a huge difference in popularity between Canelo and Trout.

Dawson, 36, isn’t coming into this fight under the best of circumstances tonight with him having been out of the ring for 11 months since his 12 round decision win over Alex Bunema last year in September 2013. But then again, Dawson, ranked #15 WBA, is the B-side of the equation tonight, and it’s not surprising that he’s been out of the ring for such a long time.

This is all about a confidence-building fight for Trout. He could have taken on a top guy, but they chose Dawson, a fringe contender for him to face instead. Dawson hasn’t lost a fight in four years when he was beaten by Serhiy Dzinziruk and Frank LoPorto.

Dawson also hasn’t ever beaten a good top tier fighter during his long 12-year career. He’s been beaten each time he stepped it up against quality opposition, and you can expect the same thing to happen tonight. Dawson faced a young Daniel Geale in 2007 and was soundly beaten in losing by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision.

With Trout picking a low ranked fighter in Dawson tonight, it’s going to put Trout in the position where he pretty much will be facing a tough decision about his career if he should lose the fight tonight. At least if Trout were taking on a quality fighter, he’d have an excuse if he were to lose the fight.



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